lex parsimoniae
by boofadil
Summary: This is the part of the speech where you say something to ruin the rest of it, and I’d rather skip that part tonight. Meredith POV. Post 4.11


I don't own Grey's Anatomy or its characters

**I don't own Grey's Anatomy or its characters. This little fic is in answer to the first challenge at Grey's Haven. Enjoy! **

_"All other things being equal, the simplest solution is the best."_

She immediately drops her head to the bar when she climbs onto her favorite stool at Joe's. When he comes over and asks her what she wants, she shifts her head to the side so she can look at him out the corner of her eye and sighs.

"Just a beer tonight. And maybe some water."

"You ok there?" Joe asks as he moves to grab a bottle from the cooler.

"No. Today has been pretty much as sucky as they come."

"I'm pretty sure that taking a header into the bay is some sort of gold standard for sucky days, and since you're breathing, I might be tempted to argue with you," he replies as he sets the uncapped beer in from of her.

"Shut up."

"As you wish."

Meredith stays there in silence as she waits for the sick, gummy feeling that's pooled in the pit of her stomach to ease up a bit. Spending most of her day dodging smirking nurses and the sympathetic looks from everyone else has left her tired and cranky. She sits up straight so she can drink the beer but keeps her head propped up in her left hand, her gaze settling on the rows of liquor in front of her.

She'd like nothing more than to get rip roaring drunk knowing that when a girl is drunk enough to dance on the bar she rarely feels any pain – at least until the morning. But Meredith knows Joe is right. When you've sunk to the bottom of the ocean and have been dead for hours, you can no longer look at an insignificant thing like a public break up with a man you technically weren't even with in the same woe is me light. She is an adult now, and there is no way to stop it, so it's time to embrace the horror and grow the fuck up already.

So she graduates from tequila with a beer back to beer with a water back and hopes she can call it growth. She's not only content with her beer, she barely even wants it and sure as hell doesn't need it to numb her. She had been sad at first, then humiliated when it became clear that their break up in the middle of the hallway was well seen and heard. She quickly progressed to angry – really, really angry. The kind of anger she usually reserved for assholes who kill bunnies and stupid drivers at rush hour. And Thatcher.

But slowly all that emotion forced its way out from under her skin leaving her feeling empty, numb, devoid of anything but a general sense of discontent and a desire to slowly drink a beer while staring at nothing. She doesn't want her friends to find her here – and she knows Joe's is a lame hiding spot – and she doesn't want to go home. She just wants to sit and wait and hope that when the beer is done she'll be ready to move off this stool.

With her history she should know life isn't interested in giving her what she wants, but when she sees him settle on the stool next to her and order his scotch, she drops her head back to the bar and groans. She figures that if she can't see him, she can hold out hope that this is all just an insanely painful dream. She keeps her head down, pillowed by her arms and covered with her hair. She counts to ten and peeks out to find him staring at her with an inscrutable look on his face.

"Fuck."

"Are you already drunk?" he asks, his voice hard and etched with disappointment.

She pretty much wants to choke him but keeps her hands to herself. "Not drunk enough to have this conversation with you."

"So what's your plan? Already falling back into old habits like a washed up barfly?" he snarks at her.

She lifts her head up and glares at him through a curtain of hair. "Joe? I wasn't aware you let assholes in your bar." She knows it's a lame answer as soon as it falls out of her mouth, but she's never been clever when it comes to trash talking.

"Mature, Meredith. Very, very mature."

"Oh shut up." She turns back to her beer, and he turns back to his scotch, and they sit there in hostile silence for a few minutes before Meredith blurts out, "You can't be serious. I'm the immature one, Derek? You're the one who throws house plans in my face and asked Rose out for a date less than a day later. All that I'm doing is sitting in a bar, drinking a fucking beer. You're the one who chose to sit right next to me when there are at least five empty seats at the bar." The more she thinks about it, the more confused she gets. "Why are you here? Don't you have a date tonight?"

"I did. I canceled."

"Wow. You really are an asshole. Have you pulled this routine with all the women in your life, or is it a new habit you've picked up recently?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You're a jerk, Derek. You think you're sweet and romantic. You actually believe you're McDreamy, which I guess we can blame Cristina for because not everyone gets her sarcasm, but you're not. You play with the women in your life--Addison, me, Rose. You extend your love or friendship or interest only to snatch it back just as we reach out to take it. You, Derek Shepherd, are a complete ass."

"I canceled the date because it was wrong, Meredith."

"You bet your ass it was wrong. What do you want for fixing what you fucked up? A medal? A bottle of scotch? A thank you card?" She is getting more disgusted with him by the minute, and the numbness she felt moments before makes way for an overwhelming anger. She takes a deep breath, then lets it out slowly trying to calm herself down. So much for being an adult.

"I want you to listen to me." He says this with such sincere naïveté that she looks back up at him, shocked that he's actually that audacious.

"Go ahead and talk," Meredith answers quietly, suddenly deflated. She wonders, not for the first time, why she had to choose this man to love.

"Thank you." He pauses, mouth open as if he has no clue what to say, and Meredith is about to give up and just hit him with her empty beer bottle when he speaks again. "I'm sorry. You're right. I'm an ass. I asked you for the world and threw it in your face when you were hesitant. I love you. I love you more than I've loved anyone." He pauses and Meredith takes advantage of his hesitation to jump in.

"Stop. Because this is the part of the speech where you say something to ruin the rest of it, and I'd rather skip that part tonight." She sounds bitter even to her own ears, and she hates that.

"I do love you, Meredith."

She wonders, not for the first time, how he can be so damn sincere one moment and such a bastard the next.

"You keep saying that. Over and over and over you say 'Meredith I love you' and every damn time I fall for it. I think surely this time he means it, this time he's not going to take it back. But you always do. So I have to ask you, Derek, what do you love about me? What is it about me that you love so much in this moment but is so worthless that you feel like you can throw it away the next?"

Derek takes a second too long to answer, and Meredith can't help but feel the tears well up. In this moment she would like nothing more than to disappear. She knows there are at least five people close enough to hear their conversation, and she needs to escape, so she grabs her bag and her coat and makes her way up the stairs to the exit as fast as she can. He catches up to her halfway up the stairs and grabs her arm.

Meredith freezes. "Let go." Her voice is cold even to her own ears.

He immediately drops her arm, his eyes wide with either shock or fright, she isn't sure which. She continues up the steps, a little slower this time. Her legs feel extra heavy and she's back to feeling drained and desolate. She flinches when she hears him follow her up the stairs but doesn't make an effort to stop him. As Meredith leaves the claustrophobic warmth of the bar and walks out into the open air, she shivers violently. She can feel him right behind her and knows that he's not going to leave before she has her say. She makes it to the relative privacy of her car when she hears him say her name again.

"What do you want from me Derek? Did you think you could say you're sorry and I'd fall into your arms? Do you want me to say I love you back? Okay. I love you." She wants to vomit at the truth of her words, "Or maybe that's not enough. Derek, marry me. Father my children. Build me a huge house with more rooms than we could possibly need." She stops, tears falling down her face, and she hates herself for crying. Determined to end this once and for all, she gathers her strength and looks directly into his eyes. "It's never going to happen that way, Derek."

Her opinion of him elevates ever so slightly when he doesn't flinch from her words. "You asked me why I love you, and that's why. You can be strong and powerful and brave."

"Is that why you have to hurt me?"

Derek pulls his head back, shock written on his face, and Meredith knows that she's finally getting through to him.

"I don't want to hurt you, Mer."

"Then don't. Stop following me, don't talk to me, leave me alone." Meredith turns and unlocks her car door and Derek steps aside to let her open it, his whole body screaming in defeat.

"I don't want to let you go, Meredith." There's pain in his voice that she's never heard before, and it's almost enough to drag her out of her car to hug him tight. Almost.

"Do you love me? Do you really believe that you love me?" Meredith whispers.

"Yes."

"Then show me that by letting me go," Meredith pleads. "I need to grow up. And so do you."

"No. I don't believe that we have to be apart to grow. That's crap, Meredith," he says earnestly.

"If I've learned anything in the last six months, Derek, it's that being in love with you is hard. So hard." She swallows before continuing, "Too hard."

He looks like he might back down, his head hung low, his hands rubbing harshly at his eyes. She believes that maybe she's gotten through to him when he stands up straight and starts pacing. "It is hard, Meredith. Life is hard but my life is so much better with you in it. That's what I know."

God, she wants to believe him. She needs to believe him so bad, but when she tries to find it in herself to give in she just can't. "You say that now, but two weeks or a month from now when I get scared and you get mad, we're just going to be right back here. You think you know how to love me, but no one ever has before, and you haven't exactly shown me that fighting for you is worth it."

"I'll fight enough for both of us!" He stops in front of her, staring at her with that look in his eyes. The one full of promise and romance and belief.

She'd believe it if she hasn't seen it so many times. She's so close to giving in but the memories of all his broken promises come flooding back. "Let me go, Derek. Please, just let me go," she begs, sobbing now. She hates herself in this moment, and she hates him for killing her faith in him.

Derek stares at her, as if he's searching for some sort of answer. His gaze gets to be too much and Meredith looks away, biting her lip. Half of her hopes he'll leave while she's not watching and half of her hopes he'll fight one more time. She shuts her eyes tightly and then hears him suck in a sharp breath.

He takes a step back and she knows what's coming. "Okay," Derek says. He reaches out and tucks a strand of hair behind her hear, then tips her chin up so she is looking back up at him. Her breath catches at the small, sad smile gracing his lips. "Okay," he repeats. Then he turns and walks away.

Meredith sinks into the driver's seat and sits there for a few minutes before dragging her left foot into the car and slamming the door. This has been one of the longest days of her life and that includes the day she drowned. At least she was unconscious for most of that. Exhausted, she starts the car and pulls out of the parking lot, headed for home. Her mind races the entire drive home but her thoughts move so quickly that she doesn't have time to process any of them. Halfway to the house, the numbness from earlier creeps back in. When she gets home she doesn't even make it up the stairs, just flops down on the couch in the darkened den and stares out into the darkness.

This is the part where she would usually give up on growing up for the night and search out her old friend Jose, but instead she just lays herself out on the couch and falls into a light, fitful sleep.

She's woken half an hour later when Alex gets home and flips on the light, almost sitting on Meredith before she squeaks to let him know she's there.

"Sorry," he mumbles without actually looking at her. "There's a game on. You mind?"

Meredith shakes her head, letting him know she's ok with it and pulls her legs up to her chest, hugging them as she snuggles into the corner of the couch. They watch the last quarter of what she understands to be a college basketball game with only Alex's growls of irritation interrupting the commentators' annoying play by play. When it's obvious his team is going to lose, Alex turns off the TV and looks toward Meredith.

"You ok, Mer?"

"No," she replies before turning toward him.

"You gonna be?" he asks his voice full of awkward sincerity.

"I think so." She gives him a small smile in a weak attempt to convince both Alex and herself.

He nods, drumming his hands on the back of the couch before jerking his head towards the stairs. "You going to bed?"

"Maybe in a minute."

"Okay," he replies then heads to bed, turning the light off before he makes his way up the stairs.

Once again Meredith is left to herself laying on the couch in the dark. She lies there in the darkened silence for a few minutes, hoping that she's done the right thing and dreading what the morning is guaranteed to bring. Then slowly she gets up off the couch and checks the locks on the front door before trudging up the stairs. She can't keep tomorrow from coming, so she might as well sleep.


End file.
